


Uniform Wear

by Sonora



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Arguments, Character Study, Gen, Military, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life, Women in the Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5478737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonora/pseuds/Sonora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Okay,” Caitlin begins tiredly, "I got a heads-up before I walked in here that the PPDC steering committee has to go in front of the Security Council tomorrow morning, so we don’t have the rest of the week like we were supposed to.  We need to have this,” and she stops, glancing over at Bruce Gage, “what did you call it?”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>“CONOPS,” he drawls, and stifles a yawn with the back of his flight suit sleeve.  No matter how many time she tells everybody to wear civilian clothing to these brainstorming sessions, the Americans keep showing up in uniform.  “Concept of Operations.  A steering document for how we're going to proceed with running this entire program.  Kind of important.”</i></p><p>  <i>“Right," Caitlin says, ignoring the sarcasm as best she can.  "We need to have the CONOPS drafted and finalized by the time Doctor Schoenfeld walks in there tomorrow.  Which means we aren’t leaving here today until we make some decisions about this.”</i></p><p>Or, Caitlin's opinions about how the Jaeger Corps should be organized don't jive with anyone else's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uniform Wear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalandan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalandan/gifts).



> *Whew*, this one was quite the ride! I don't own a copy of _Tales from the Drift_ , and I'll admit, I'm not a huge fan of some of the stuff that's been said by Beacham and GDT. So I had to choose something of a different structure for this story, so I could explore the characters without getting too far in the weeds in terms of canon narratives. I haven't written some of these folks before, so this was a lot of fun.
> 
> I hope this scratches the "Class of 2015" and "forming the Jaeger Academy" itch! I do have to admit, it's not super fluffy, maybe a little bit more adversarial than some people would go, but... as a military girl myself, I tried to give the female characters a dynamic that rang true to me. 
> 
> Anyway, overall, I hope it works, and merry Christmas!

Stuffing her first K-cup of the day in the first-gen Keurig, the last thing Caitlin wants to do right now is go back in that room.

That fucking conference room.

“Having fun yet?”

Caitlin hits the _ten ounce_ button on the machine’s old screen. It flickers. She tries not to wonder about how much longer they’ll be able to get coffee on the open market. Kaiju Blue poisoning is consuming something like a hundred acres of forest a day down in Costa Rica. “Yeah, not really, Tam.”

The female pilot - the other pilot; Caitlin still has a hard time thinking of herself that way, still feels like she’s living in a bad anime - reaches around her for a mug from the upper cabinet. “You’re the one who asked us all to do this.”

Caitlin holds back what she’d really like to say. “Not for a three day argument.”

“Well, if you’d stop being a bitch about it, we could have gotten through all this shit you put on the agenda in, like, a day.”

“All the shit we, as in all of us, put on the agenda,” Scott Hansen interrupts, Herc at his side, both of them smelling of snow and nicotine. 

How they’ve got the lung capacity to actually pilot for extended periods of time, considering how Scott smokes like a chimney and Herc’s not much better, Caitlin’s got no idea. The PR officer who’s been appointed to baby-sit them - the nice older Lieutenant Colonel who always looks like she wants to commit seppuku - is trying to get them to quit. _Bad for the program’s image_ , she keeps saying.

But Caitlin’s staying out of that one. She’s got enough on her plate as it is.

“You can take the political activist out of Australia, but... shit, that don’t work.” Herc gives Caitlin an apologetic smile as he punches his younger brother in the shoulder. “That’s not something you should be smug about.”

“Like I keep tellin’ you lot, either we figgure this shit out or the morale vampires up at the Security Council’ll do it for us.”

“We don’t answer to the Security Council,” Caitlin says tiredly, arms folded. “The Pan Pacific Defense Corps is an autonomous body.”

“And I’m not gonna feel good about that either until somebody in our class, has aged up enough to take over command of it,” Scott shoots back. “Everything with the UN is political. Last thing we need is this war bein’ run from goddamn Brussels.”

“It’s been working for the EU for a fair number of years,” Stacker offers.

Scott just raises an eyebrow. Caitlin has to hand it to the man; he might be belligerently pleasant most of the time, but he’s clearly spent his adult life weaponizing his expressions. “You can’t possibly be that stupid. If we hadn’t been fucking invaded by aliens, Europe right now would be...”

“How much time do we got before we start this thing?” Herc asks Caitlin pointedly.

She has no idea why they all keep deferring to her. It’s strange, uncomfortable. They clearly don’t want to, and she wishes they wouldn’t. Not that she hasn’t run large teams before, but this isn’t a team right now; it’s barely contained anarchy. _A time bomb_ , her mind rolls back to her, that Hulk quote coming to the fore. 

If only this war as as easy as taking out some self inflated Norse demi-god. 

At least Loki had motive. But they’ve got no idea what the kaijuu want. Hell, her K-Science counterparts only just figured how to preserve kaijuu tissue. They don’t even know why kaijuu tissue decomposes. Not like any bacteria on Earth is capable of...

“Lightcap?”

She shakes herself, checking her watch. “Ten minutes, I think.”

“Fuck, I’d have had us in here at zero six,” he says, and grabs his brother by the collar. “C’mon, b’fore somebody steals our seats.”

It’s not the first time she’s watched one of them drag the other out of the room.

The machine sputters out the last few drops of caffeinated brown liquid. It smells gross. Makes her miss the old crappy drip carafe thing she had back in college.

Tamsin’s eating a granola bar. Just watching her. Long, slow chews.

It unnerves Caitlin more than it should.

And then her cell phone buzzes.

+++++

Caitlin waits as the rest of her Class of 2015 wanders in, shifting in her sneakers as she examines the white board next to her

_Caitlin, darling, I’m sorry to do this to you, but I need..._

How many conversations has she had with Jasper that have started that way? How many times has he come to her, asking for things? Back when she was a student, it was flattering. Now, it’s just tiring. She’s grateful for him having confidence in her abilities, for placing this kind of faith in her, but that’s about as far as things go for her anymore. She still cares for him, but he’s not anyone she can have, and now there’s Sergio, and... 

People are exhausting.

She gives the room a once over, the clock hands in the back of the room ticking out zero-eight thirty. 

The Kaidanovskies, the Hansens, Kaori-san, the Gage twins, Sergio - who gives her a much needed wink as he boots up his computer - and herself, Tamsin and Stacker, and... that’s it. That’s all she’s got right now. That’s all she’s going to get, unless they can hammer this crap out today. 

There’s a stack of resumes, applications, inquiries, official military records littering Caitlin's desk right now, people who should be screened and admitted, and she can’t accept any of them. Like Jasper explained, just because the jaegers finally got put into production, doesn’t mean the entire organization has an operations budget. 

Which is why they’re having this meeting in the OG Commander’s conference room at Elmendorf AFB, instead of their own facilities. Those contracts have been awarded but funds can’t be committed yet. Brawler Yukon is sitting out on the flightline, instead of being in a proper hangar where she should be. The base VOQ is wretched, and they’re still having to work with the active duty military schedule and personnel, which isn’t helping Caitlin’s position one iota, and she needs her laboratories and server farms moved out of their cramped temporary quarters in the old Communications Squadron building.

And thinking about that just gives her a headache. She’s got many other things she needs to be doing. Some many things to worry about. Things that actually need her attention, things that actually threaten the program. 

Kaori’s drift partner leaving the program - and hadn’t that been fun last week, listening to the two of them scream at each other in Japanese in the drift sim, only for Kaori to come out, bow to her, and very peaceably explain _Aoko-san has agreed it would be best if we do not drift together again_ , for reasons neither of them have deigned to talk further about? A heap of concept designs for the Mark-IIs. Bugs in the neural bridge software. Maximizing the payloads on Romeo Blue, which is set to roll out in a couple of months. Manufacturing snags on Lucky Seven, Cherno Alpha.

But no. Here she is. Here they are.

Debating bullshit.

It’s a nightmare.

It’s just a nightmare.

And she’s got no idea how to get it under control.

No way around it but straight through, she figures.

“Okay,” Caitlin begins tiredly, "I got a heads-up before I walked in here that the PPDC steering committee has to go in front of the Security Council tomorrow morning, so we don’t have the rest of the week like we were supposed to. We need to have this,” and she stops, glancing over at Bruce Gage, who volunteered to take minutes on Monday, “what did you call it?”

“CONOPS,” he drawls, and stifles a yawn with the back of his flight suit sleeve. No matter how many time she tells everybody to wear civilian clothing to these brainstorming sessions, the Americans keep showing up in uniform. “Concept of Operations. A steering document for how we're going to proceed with running this entire program. Kind of important”

“Right," Caitlin says, ignoring the sarcasm as best she can. "We need to have the CONOPS drafted and finalized by the time Doctor Schoenfeld walks in there tomorrow. Which means we aren’t leaving here today until we make some decisions about this.”

“What, your doctor could not get you more time?” Sasha asks from the back of the conference room. She refuses to sit at the table, no matter how many times Caitlin asks her, lounging in the back with the hulking mass of a cousin of hers. She runs red-painted nails through her bleached hair and smiles a little. “Thought he do everything for you.”

Caitlin can’t stop the biochemical feedback from her embarrassment shooting heat through her cheeks; how everybody found out about that, she’s got no idea. It’s nobody’s business but her and Sergio’s, but Kaori’s the only woman in the program who hasn’t given her underhanded shit over it. It’s not the only thing they’ve been nasty about, but it certainly has been the worst.

Part of her, that mean little part deep down in her chest, would like to rise above it by sinking below, claiming _I’ve dealt with this my whole life_ , but the truth is more complicated than that.

Most of the guys she went to school with, worked with at D.A.R.P.A., didn’t give a shit that she happened to be an engineer with a uterus. The other women around here, though...

She hasn’t been worried about other women’s opinions about her since she was in fifth grade and she got voted off her small school’s Odyssey of the Mind team because she missed one of the slumber parties. It shouldn’t be a problem now. It really shouldn’t.

But there’s something about these women; they just get under her skin.

“It doesn’t fuckin’ matter, the whys or the hows or the whatever the fucks, we need to get this done,” Sergio says, somewhat louder than he needs to, from his seat at the head of the table. And thank god. Caitlin smiles to herself; she doesn’t know where she’d be right now without him. "What's left?"

Caitlin consults the board again. "Training selection standards, rank here within the Jaeger Corps, and uniform wear." 

“So let’s get this done. Caitlin, if I may, I’d suggest we start with selection standards. Intake of pilot candidates is critical.”

“It seems pretty straight forward. You’re a test pilot,” Tamsin says. “Stacks and I are pilots, Herc’s a pilot...”

“But we are no pilots. I am correction officer, he is cop,” Sasha interrupts. “Caitlin is scientist. Kaori-san is military engineer with judo black belt, without even co-pilot now...”

Caitlin glances back over her whiteboard, pen in hand, trying to extract the essence of yesterday’s conversation from her notes. “We already agreed that flying a military aircraft doesn’t necessarily qualify one to pilot a jaeger, didn’t we?”

“I do think some kind of connection to military service, or some kind of first responder status is essential,” Tamsin says, contemplating her mug of coffee. “There needs to be that sense of duty in this.”

Caitlin grits her teeth at the way most of the room nods. It’s irritating sometimes, the way everybody ignores the science, treats the Drift like it’s a matter of will and not hard-coded neuro-chemical compatibility. “What’s truly essential here is ensuring that candidates be capable of establishing and maintaining that connection with a co-pilot and with the jaeger. As I mentioned yesterday, my concern is that we are grossly limiting the candidate pool.”

Tamsin snorts. “So? Every country on the Pacific Rim has a military force. Are you telling me that out of, I don’t know, millions of people, we can’t find the couple dozen a year that can make the cut?”

“I think we need to consider the implications of having it be just military,” Scott says, turning to her. “The military requirement limits the pool because of all the national strategy involved. That’s why we don’t have anybody from China at this table right now. The feeling here in the Anglosphere is that anybody from the PLAAF can't be trusted, and China's already lodging complaints with the Security Council trying to get Japanese Self Defense Force personnel locked out of the PDDC.”

"China is problem, not us," Kaori-san says matter-of-factly.

"What's he's saying, Kaori-san, is that nobody's forgiven Japan for World War II," Herc clarifies. 

Caitlin’s not a huge fan of the Hansens. She’s got her suspicions about Scott pulling strings to get him and Herc into the program. But even at that, she did approve them. They’ve got a great handshake and fight well, Herc has an amazing record as an attack helicopter pilot, and Australia demanded a bigger role in the PPDC after the Scissure disaster. 

It was a move backed up by her boss at DARPA and the brass up at the Pentagon who are still under the impression they’re in charge of this thing. STRATCOM doesn’t want to have to drop another nuke; apparently, one of the Minuteman crew members on that particular mission is back on suicide watch after a second attempt. A lot of civilians died. Including Herc’s wife. Scott’s partner. Their parents. All the kids at Charlie’s elementary school that Herc had to leave behind.

Together, the Hansens manage to be both the most and least offensive people in the program. Most of the time, Caitlin's willing to cut them some slack. But they're still assholes.

But Kaori-san inclines her head slightly, like it's not a problem at all. "I have been to Pearl Harbor."

"You're in the minority," Herc replies mildly. 

“But if you... _hnngh_ , if we say, everybody can come, then we say everybody can come without co-pilot? Do you make Japanese drift with Chinese? With different languages and ideals? How can we do this?”

Caitlin wishes she'd brought her laptop with her today. She's got all the data on this there. “Technically, if the brain scans are compatible...”

“Her brain scan was compatible with Aoko-san’s, and clearly, that’s been an issue,” Tamsin replies icily. 

“I think there is something to be said for coming to the program with a partner,” Stacker adds in that thoughtful way of his. “It’s quite expensive training, or will be, when the full program is put into effect.”

“Our estimates are about two to three million a pilot, just to get them in the conn-pod,” Caitlin rattles off from memory.

“So six million a drift pair, entrusted with a machine that costs upwards of three billion to build. And we’re only able to build a handful jaegers a year. We’re all getting the first Mark-Is of the assembly line, but there’s at least fourteen more in production, correct?” he continues. “We should not waste time with people who are not drift compatible, nor should we waste resources on single pilots who come here without a partner. The Drift is biological, yes, but we already know it can break down over other factors. Caitlin, you and Sergio were extremely fortunate. We cannot trust those sorts of odds to carry us forward.”

That seems to calm the anxiety that was mounting in the room; Stacker Pentecost seems to have a soothing effect on people. Caitlin’s not sure what that’s about, but she’s grateful for it. He’s one of the lynch pins of the program, even more so than she is, in so many ways, and she’s looking forward to the day when he steps up a bit more. Takes more control.

He’s certainly better at wrangling these people than she is. More to the point, he seems to enjoy it.

However he’s done it, he’s hit on something that everybody seems willing to discuss, rather than argue about.

So they get the training stuff hammered out over the course of the next two hours - countries signatory to the United Nations are allowed to submit applicants through their own internal processes, but candidate pairs will be put through standardized Drift testing prior to beginning training. Caitlin’s happy with that, and like both Stacker and Bruce comment, it’s okay to not have the details perfectly defined yet. She can do that on her own; no need to involve any of the rest of them in something like that.

But the second she wipes it off the board, Herc puts his feet up on the table and asks the question Caitlin didn’t even know she was dreading.

“So now that we’ve taken the military out of the selection process, how are we puttin’ it back in the organization itself?”

+++++

Alaska was not Caitlin’s first choice for the headquarters of the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps training operations. It’s too isolated, too distant, too specific a biome with too extreme of weather. For cold weather practice, it’s perfect, but there’s nothing in Alaska that can replicate the conditions found throughout the archipelagos and island nations of the lower Pacific.

It is, however, out of the way. Less likely to be attacked by the kaijuu. With reasonable access to both American petroleum and Canadian uranium. And there’s no vast reef structure, no vulnerable sea life, she’s going to destroy when she has her jaegers do live-fire ops out in the ocean.

It wasn’t her first choice, but she’s making it work.

She hates how dark, how cold, it is this time of year.

Really makes her miss her old D.A.R.P.A. labs down in New Mexico. Snow in Albuquerque was something special, an occasion to go outside and play.

Here, it just wears her down.

But things have been better - both physically and in her head - since Sergio got her on more of an exercise regimen, and she’s got things, real things, to focus on these days. As messed up as it probably is, there’s something cathartic about worrying about real monsters, instead of the ones in her head. 

The sidewalks between the OG building and the chow hall have mostly been plowed after last night’s snowfall. Rock salt crunches under the soles of her sneakers as she heads over there, her Air Force issue parka barely a hedge against the chill that’s working its way into her bones.

Caitlin’s really looking forward to summer.

She deliberately waited about half an hour before heading out for lunch, choosing to sit there, reviewing what they’ve got written down so far. She’s got to hand it to them; they’ve put together three hundred pages of really good military-ese. It’ll play well to the UN. Shows that they’re serious about this, that they aren’t just slapping this thing together.

 _Which is why you need an answer about uniforms_ , her stupid brain whispers at her, and she wants to hit herself.

She knows she’s obsessing about this. 

She knows she shouldn’t be obsessing about this.

Flashing her ID at the civilian employee who’s taking money at the front register, Caitlin grabs a tray and starts loading her tray. She’s not that hungry, all the emotion from the room still churning in her stomach, but with the physical conditioning she’s doing for Brawler Yukon, she can’t afford to skip meals.

Nobody else is in the dining room, Caitlin notices with not a little relief.

Nobody but Sergio, who smiles and waves her over.

Her stomach twists a little tighter for entirely different reasons, and she smiles back.

“They’re challenging you cause they think you’re weak,” he tells her as she digs into her food. “Which you aren’t. When Captain Sevier pushes on you, tell her to shut the fuck up.”

“I don’t want her to think I don’t respect her opinion,” Caitlin sighs. “I know you guys know more about this than I do...”

“And you’re building the machines. So who cares? We’re a pack of assholes with authority problems and dead loved ones.” Sergio says, and bumps Caitlin’s shoulder. “We all just want to get out there and kill these things.”

“We all want that.”

“So everything we talk about in there needs to be in service of that. We wanna respect you, but you gotta make us respect you. Make sense?”

“Yeah, sure,” Caitlin says, and eyes him. “You respect me, right?”

“Of course.”

She nods, considering her lunch. It’s tasteless, just like all chow hall food is, and she’s pretty sure the nutrition content to nil. “But you’re still calling her captain.”

“Yeah, guess I did that.” He laughs ruefully, shaking his head. They’ve only drifted a few times, but sometimes, it seems like she can still feel what he’s feeling, even when they’re not connected. There’s some embarrassment there, but whether it’s for himself or for her, Caitlin can’t tell.

But she doesn’t need some kind of neural connection to guess at what he’s thinking. “You’re going to tell me we need rank.”

“The public’s going to need something to call us. Mister D’Onofrio and Doctor Lightcap, pilots of Brawler Yukon, don’t have much of a ring to it.”

She pokes at her powdered potatoes. “I don’t know.”

“What’s your problem with it, anyway?”

“What, with rank?”

“With military anything.”

He’s earnest about it, like he is about everything, and as much as Caitlin loves it, it makes things more difficult in a way. She knows she’s fixating. She knows she is. She knows she shouldn’t be, but stress reactions are stress reactions and she’s two thousand miles from her therapist. She can’t get anything in order here; the aren’t letting her put anything in order. This is her program, and nobody’s _respecting_ that.

“Caitlin, if you can’t talk to me, who can you talk to?”

 _Jasper_ , she thinks. But that too doesn’t help anything. 

“I don’t know,” she lies. “I just don’t know.” 

His eyes stay on her as she goes back to her food, but he doesn’t push her.

Yet another thing she loves about him. 

They just work together. 

It might be the first time Caitlin’s had that with anyone, but she’s not really sure. She’s never paid attention to it before.

+++++

The afternoon doesn’t go any better than the morning.

They can’t get through the rank question, any more than they can get through the uniform one, and Caitlin realizes the two things far are too intertwined to extricate from one another, and nobody will stop fighting her on it.

It’s so infuriating. 

So, so infuriating.

They don't need it. They _shouldn't_ need it.

Trevin finally shoved back from the table with venom in his expression, after she’d tried to explain to him for the third time why, in an international organization with different cultural sensibilities and physical environments, she just didn’t think it was practical to ask everybody to wear the same thing.

“I don’t know who put a bug up your ass about hating the military, Caitlin, but it’s really starting to piss me off. If you want to run this shit, and you don’t care about our opinions...”

“I do care, Bruce. That’s why I wanted us all to work on this together. I don’t want to just be dictating to you all...”

“But you are dictating. You’re standing there at the front of the room, with your white board and your markers and your smugness as the girl who we can’t get out of the hangars without, or whatever the fuck you’re thinking, telling us that everything we’re trying to tell you is worthless.”

“I’m not, really...”

“You are. You absolutely are. And if you think Bruce ’n’ me going on Good Morning America next week in, like, khakis and t-shirts is a good idea, because who the fuck cares about a professional image, then I really don’t know why I’m here.”

His brother, next to him, rubbed his forehead and mumbled something in what sounded like smeared baby babble, and Bruce answered back in kind, still glaring at Caitlin.

So yeah, she might have sighed. Maybe. “I’ve asked you guys, more than once, to not use twinspeak when we’re discussing issues that affect all of us.”

“Oh fuck you,” Bruce snapped. 

And Sergio suggested calling another break.

So Caitlin's back in the break room. Watching the coffee machine again.

Fourth K-cup of the day.

She knows she should probably switch to decaf. She’s starting to get a headache and the caffeine’s not going to help.

Caitlin’s read everybody’s psych profiles multiple times, performed her own interviews before allowing anybody in the program, and she still doesn’t really understand these people. Doesn’t really know how to connect with them. It’s so frustrating. 

She’s just not part of this.

She hasn’t felt like she was part of this from the beginning. And she hates that, because of everybody who’s cleared to pilot right now, she and Sergio are the only two who actually have. She’s the one who’s actually a pilot.

It’s not fair. 

Caitlin doesn’t know what she’ll do if she gets squeezed out of this, too.

“You gonna stare at that thing or actually use it?” 

Grabbing her finished coffee, Caitlin pops the top on the machine, a faint thunk as the used k-cup hits the disposal tray inside. “Have it at.”

“You know, violence isn’t an occupation for wallflowers,” Tamsin says as she loads the Keurig up anew, and gives Caitlin another of those damn looks of hers. Those bored, disapproving, careless looks. Caitlin is so, so tired of this shit. “You gotta step up or get the fuck out of somebody’s way.”

And here it is. Caitlin feels her heart sink. “What do you mean?”

Tamsin’s eyebrows arch. “Okay, so, I’m not trying to be a jerk here, but no matter what the public thinks about this program, we’re piloting giant metal machines against flesh and blood monsters. Life expectancy is going to be measured in single digit events.”

“What...”

“We’re all going to die in these things you’re building for us, Lightcap. You gotta get your head around that, because right now, you’re treating this like a damn garden party.”

“You guys think I’m not serious about this?” Caitlin asks, aghast. 

“Yeah, no shit. Because you’re not serious about this. You won’t even back us up on uniforms...”

“This isn’t the military!”

“We are here to kill things! Killing, Caitlin, doesn’t have many career options! We are either exterminators, mercenaries or military personnel! And I’d like a goddamn flag on my coffin when the time comes.” She takes a deep breath, face gone a strange reddish-purple. 

Caitlin shakes her head. Again, does anybody read the literature she puts out? She’s designed the jaegers well above the performance envelop required to take out any of the kaijuu that have exited the Breach so far. Once she gets them deployed in actual combat, she’s going to be able to tweak, refine, improve. “I...” she begins.

But Tamsin just holds up a hand. “I didn’t come here to have some fucking GS civilian bitch take my wings away and tell me to go kill things for money!”

Caitlin frowns. That’s not what she’s trying to do at all... and is that what they think about her? What they think she’s trying to do? Be that GS-15 who doesn’t know what she’s doing but is doing her damnedest to ruin their lives? Because she knew people like that at D.A.R.P.A. She’s never wanted to be that herself. 

“We’re all here for our own reasons.”

Tamsin shifts her weight, and Caitlin’s shocked to see her wipe wetness off her cheeks. “I don’t understand what’s so fucking hard about this for you. If you let this become about what we want, it’s going to become about us, not as pilots but as, like, rock stars or Top Gun or something, and then what happens? What happens to this program when the PR department is fielding calls from Rolling Stone instead of the Wall Street Journal?”

“It won’t,” Caitlin protests. “This is a professional...”

“It can’t be about us. And it can’t be about you.”

“Yeah, but you’re telling me to make it about what you want!” Caitlin snaps, exasperated.

“If you’re thinking that everything we’re trying to tell you is coming straight from our egos, you’re the one with the problem.”

Caitlin opens her mouth, but shuts it again just as quick, not sure what she can, much less should, say. But Tamsin’s watching her, somehow managing to look pissed off despite the tears she’s trying to wipe off her face, and that needs some kind of answer. 

“I don’t want this to be me verses you all,” she finally says. “It shouldn’t be about that.”

“Jesus, Caitlin. I don’t want that either. This is about us. You’re the one insisting on all these divisions.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” Caitlin replies softly, thoroughly confused now. 

Tamsin looks like she’s about to say something else, but glances over at the microwave. Five minutes before this break’s over. “Fuck this. I’m gonna go wash my face, see if I can get this damn color down,” she grumbles.

Caitlin really does want to say something, but she’s never been good with other women. And it occurs to her, as Tamsin slinks away, that she might be dealing with the same issue. It’s not like Tam’s the first female fighter pilot Caitlin’s ever met, much less worked with. And maybe Caitlin has been treating this like a D.A.R.P.A. project, where the test pilots were there at her behest, working on her projects, all theory and experimentation.

She hasn't been looking at this like a pilot.

She hasn't been letting herself be part of this. Not fully. Not in the way she wants to be. Should be.

“She is right,” a Japanese-accented voice pipes up from the corner, and there’s Kaori-san, knitting in hand. The woman always seems to have some kind of craft project on her, like she takes notes not with pen and paper, but the loops in her yarn. “There must be a connection.”

“It’s just clothing,” Caitlin replies.

“If this just clothing, would not bother you so much,” Kaori-san says, needles clicking. “She believes you do not care but you, nn, you care more.” She spreads her hands apart, defining some spherical space. The knitting project dangles. A scarf, maybe, thick and chunky. “More than her.”

“Do you think it matters?”

“In Japan, everything has uniform. Babies have uniform and old people wear in park to do tai chi.”

“And?”

“It is source of identity. It says, we belong together for common goal,” Kaori-san replies in that flawlessly smooth way of hers, and then hesitates. “In Japan, harmony is everything. In West, you fight much more. It is like, fighting is everything.”

“So what, we need to fight less?”

“Nng, maybe... we find way to make fighting harmony for us,” she says, and tilts her head. “I am sorry, if that not translate.”

“No, I think I get it. We need to stop fighting?”

“Nn, no,” and Kaori-san shakes her head quickly, hands kind of squeezing at the air in an attempt to explain something she obviously doesn’t have the English for. “In fight, combat, there is peace. You focus at center, here,” and she taps her sternum, “where quiet lives, no motion, to see opponent, yes? And nng, _dakara_ , everything is clear. Is no longer fight.”

+++++

Caitlin thinks about that for the rest of the afternoon, as Sergio and Bruce lead a review of everything they’ve got so far. And it hurts to admit, but it seems to work. Better than continuing the fight about uniforms. Everybody’s offering input, going back and offering corrections or asking questions about clarifying language, and for the first time all week, it seems like they’re actually on the same page.

And it hits her.

She was never in charge of this.

The jaegers, absolutely. But these people? They aren’t hers to order. Maybe they don’t need to be ordered, filed into strict categories and kept there. And maybe she’s been viewing the things that they want - all that military crap - as a means to do that, but they obviously don’t see it that way. Tamsin doesn’t see it that way.

She wants her pilots to have the freedom to do what they need to do when they’re in the conn-pod. She wants them to be able to trust their own judgment. She doesn’t want to weigh them down with a bunch of damn strategy and tactics and reporting instructions and all that other crap she saw when she was working at DARPA, the stuff that made it nearly impossible for her to do her job, rules layered on top of rules until it felt like she was drowning. 

She hasn’t wanted uniforms, rank, any of those military trappings, because to her, they don’t represent anything but that repression she’s dealt with her entire professional career.

But that’s... that’s just the way she sees it. The way she feels about it, not what it is in reality. Or not in this reality, maybe.

And Caitlin, if nothing else, has always tried her hardest not to live in her own head.

Bad things tend to happen when she lives in her own head. 

Tamsin’s quiet too. Unusually so. Doesn’t say a damn thing out loud, sitting stiffly in her chair, an expression on her face like she’s given up.

And it hits Caitlin, about an hour into the document review, what Kaori might have been talking about. 

Tamsin, the rest of them, they’re not looking at the jaegers through the same lens she is, all actuators and algorithms and programming language and the chemical composition of hull alloys. She’s a pilot now, sure, but she’s still the engineer.

Tamsin doesn’t have that kind of conflict. She isn’t wearing two hats. She’s not looking at how the machines are built, but what they’re built to do. What she’s going to have to do when her future jaeger is finally cleared for launch. What will hopefully happen, the next time the Breach opens. 

And Tamsin’s scared.

Maybe they’re all scared. 

But they’re going to go out there and do it anyway because there’s no other choice. There’s nothing else that can be done, not with the kaijuu being drawn to heavily populated areas. Conventional bombs are far too weak, nukes too dangerous, any other options, like orbital gravity weapons, just as experimental as the jaegers. The jaeger program is the last best hope they’ve got. 

They’re all they’ve got.

But if fear’s at the center of what’s driving them right now - which is what Caitlin can only assume is what Kaori-san was saying - then that’s a pretty big problem. They need something else. Something that’s theirs. Something that defines them. Something _else_ that defines them.

“What if we didn’t do rank, but a title?”

The pleasant hum in the room sputters out; everybody’s staring at her, and Caitlin realizes belatedly she just interrupted Scott. But that’s fine. He just sits back in his chair and shrugs.

She leans forward, the words coming to her as she talks. “I mean, rank is dependent on this idea of people moving up a chain of command, filling in a role other than what they currently have, right? Giving orders instead of taking them. But you’ve said it yourself, Scott, we’re the only ones who do what we do. We need something that’s going to reinforce that.”

Next to his brother, Herc’s sort of smiling at her. Aleksis leans over to Sasha, who’s whispering back; probably translating, but who really knows? Sergio just looks startled.

“Like what?” Tamsin asks for the room.

Caitlin thinks for a moment, but the only thing that comes to mind are the old Westerns her parents used to love so much. The lone lawman coming to town, nothing but his revolver and his better sense to keep him alive. Keep everyone around him safe.

“What about Ranger?” she suggests.

Tamsin folds her arms. “And what about uniforms?”

“Umm,” Caitlin says, hesitating, hoping she’s not going to regret the next words out of her mouth, “I hear flight suits are pretty comfortable?”

It sparks off another two hours of fighting about what color the damn things should be. 

Two hours, for what ultimately amounts to six sentences in that CONOPS Bruce is putting together. And it won’t solve everything - far from it, and Caitlin knows that - but it does take a weight off her shoulders. Open up her day tomorrow to deal with Romeo Blue’s weapon systems.

But that night, as they’re leaving, Tamsin actually asks her to come to dinner with them. Tam’s never offered before - none of them have - and Caitlin knows it’s just going to be the same chow hall fare that Sergio would have picked up for her. 

She works herself to sleep most nights.

Alone.

“Sure,” she says now. Grabs her jacket off the back of her chair. “Sounds nice.”


End file.
